WEBVTT DON'T YOU YELL FOR THE LIFEGUARDAND HOPE HE GETS HELP OR DO YOUDO WHAT THIS HEROIC TEACHER DID?>> AND I JUST SAW IT AND NEXTTHING I KNOW I JUST STARTEDRUNNING, I JUST RAN AND I JUJUMPED IN THE WATER.TERRI: LHISA ALMASHY USED TOSWIM IN HIGH SCHOOL AND TO COACHDIVING, BUT THIS PARK VISTATEACHER SAYS SHE HASN'T REALLYSWUM IN FIVE YEARS.UNTIL SUNDAY AUGUST 28 WHEN ASSHE SAT ON DELRAY BEACH WITH HERFAMILY, SHE SAW A JUST A HANDREACH DESPERATELY OUT OF THECRASHING WAVES.>> I JUST PUT MY HEAD IN THEWATER AND I JUST FREESTYLED, ISWAM AND SWAM AND SWAM, AND WHENI GOT HIM, I GRABBED HUNDERNEATH TO KEEP HIM UP -- HEWAS UNCONSCIOUS AND THERE WASBLOOD COMING FROM HIS MOUTH.I JUST TRIED TO KEEP HIM ABOVEWATER, AND THE WAVES WERE COMINGOVER US, SO HE WAS STILL GETTINGSOME WATER, AND I JUST DID ASIDESTROKE UNTIL WE COULD TOUCH.TERRI: THE MAN WAS SWEPT OUT BYA RIP CURRENT.LHISA AND ANOTHER MAN BOTHRACING TO HIS RESCUE.>> THAT GUY NEXT TO ME, I DON'TTHINK I COULD HAVE DONE ITALONE, WE JUST BOTH DID IT.TERRI: THE VICTIM'S HYSTERICALFAMILY WATCHING THE LIFE ANDDEATH DRAMA.>> I THINK IT WAS HIS LITTLE BOYMY SISTER SAID, HE WAS JUSTWATCHING AND YOU KNOW, THEY WERECRYING.TERRI: THE VICTIM WASUNRESPONSIVE BUT HAD A FAINTPULSE, AND A LIFEGUARD WAS ABTO REVIVE HIM, FINALLY.LISA AND THE OTHER ANONYMOUSRESCUER BOTH WEAK WITH RELIEF.>> I REMEMBER HUGGING HIM, YES,WE DID IT.AND THEN HE DISAPPEARED.TERRI: SHE NEVER LEARNED THEDROWNING MAN'S NAME.BUT SHE'LL NEVER FORGET THATMOMENT HER INSTINCTS KICKED INAND SHE RISKED HER OWN LIFE TOSAVE A STRANGER.>> I DID IT AND I COULD AT THETIME, WITH A LOT OF HELP, AND IWAS GLAD TO BE A PART OF IT,BUT THEY TOLD ME AFTERWARD, IFYOU HADN'T GOTTEN TO HIM, HEWOULD'VE DIETHAT'S A HARD SENTENCE TO REALLYDIGEST.TERRI: BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU

Lhisa Almashy doesn’t really remember sprinting across the sand that hot Sunday almost two weeks ago. She knows she was sitting with her family on the beach and beyond the rough surf churned up by a tropical storm.

Almashy said she saw what might have been a hand thrown up once before disappearing below the waves.

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“I just saw it, and next thing I know, I just started running, and I just ran, and I just jumped in the water,” said Almashy.

Almashy said she used to swim competitively in high school, and even coached swimming and diving in her past. But she hasn't been a teacher for 20 years, and hasn’t been swimming in at least five.

She said the decision to jump into the tumbling waves was instantaneous, but that she put her head down and swam freestyle at least 30 meters.

“I swam and swam and swam, and when I got him, I grabbed him underneath to keep him up. He was unconscious, and blood was coming out of his mouth. I just tried to keep him above water, and the waves were coming over us, so he was still getting water, and I just did a sidestroke until we could touch bottom,” Almashy said.

Almashy said another man also swam out and was holding up the victim from the bottom.

“I don't think I could have done it alone. We just both did it,” said Almashy.

The victim, who Almashy said was about 35-years-old, had his family watching fearfully from the shore, including his crying 5-year-old son.

Witnesses told her the victim had been standing on a sandbar, and that when he stepped off, the rip current pulled him out.

When the two rescuers got the man to shore, a lifeguard was able to find a faint pulse, and revive him.

Almashy and the other rescuer were elated.

“I remember hugging him, ‘Yes, we did it!’ and then he disappeared,” said Almashy.

She never learned the drowning man’s name, nor the other rescuer’s. But paramedics assured her that the man she saved would live.

“I was glad to be a part of it. They told me afterward, ‘If you hadn't gotten to him, he would’ve died.’ That’s a hard sentence to digest, you know,” said Almashy.

Almashy teaches English to speakers of other languages at Park Vista, and said she loves her job. She said she never anticipated she would be called upon to use her rusty swimming skills to save a stranger.